Indeed, anyone who closely studies the reports from the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, knows with inescapable certainty that he conveyed to the Muslim community: “Your Lord, whom you worship, is above everything and over everything—above the Throne and above the heavens.” He also knows that, for the early generations generally, this was as firmly established as their knowledge that Allah knows all things and has power over all things. Not a single statement is transmitted from any of them that indicates the contrary, either explicitly or by its apparent meaning. Nor did any of them ever say, “Our Lord is not above the Throne,” or “He is not over the Throne,” or “His istiwā’ over the Throne is like His istiwā’ over the sea,” or any of the other absurdities of the Jahmiyyah. Nor did any of them liken His istiwā’ to that of a created being or ascribe to Him an attribute entailing temporal origination or deficiency.

What shows you the error of applying the term “apparent meaning” to a meaning befitting created beings is that expressions are of “two kinds.”

“The first” comprises expressions whose meaning is simple, such as the words lion, donkey, sea, and dog. When expressions of this kind are used—as in “the lion of Allah and the lion of His Messenger,” or when a dull-witted person is called a donkey, a scholar, a generous person, or a swift horse is called a sea, or a lion is called a dog—this is figurative usage;